iSchools Research Grants 2026 Decision Announcement
The iSchools organization maintains an annual research fund of 20.000 USD for the benefit of its members. This year's grant topic has been "Information Literacies, Authenticity and Use".
We are delighted to announce the recipients of the iSchools Research Grant 2026. This year’s call attracted 70 proposals from across the international iSchools community. The 2026 funding round focused on doctoral students and early-career researchers within eight years of completing their doctoral degree. All applicants were required to be affiliated with an iSchools member institution, with collaborative and international projects particularly encouraged.
Projects may receive up to USD 4,500 in funding and normally run for a maximum period of one year. The funded projects will begin on 1 January 2027 and conclude on 31 December 2027.
Each winning project will also receive one complimentary registration for the virtual component of iConference 2028, where the recipients will present their projects and preliminary findings to the international iSchools community.
Following a rigorous review process and an exceptionally close competition, the Research Grant Committee selected four projects from the 70 submitted proposals for funding through the iSchools Research Grant 2026.
The iSchools organization would like to congratulate:
Tingting Yang and Project Team：
Tingting Yang, project submitter, Nanyang Technological University
Mengxia Huang, Assistant Professor, Jinan University
Stella Xin Yin, Nanyang Technological University
Project: Beyond Gatekeeper: Fostering Family AI Literacy in Parent–Adolescent Negotiation of Authenticity and Responsible AI Use
4,500.00 USD
Canyu Zhang (The University of Sheffield)
Project: Understanding Authenticity in Audience Communication with Human and AI-generate
d Influencers: A Computational Analysis of TikTok Comments
4,500.00 USD
Long Hin (Lucas) Wong (University of Toronto)
Project: Revisiting Media Literacy Education Through the Lens of AI Imaginaries: Comparing University Courses in China and Canada
4,500.00 USD
Rahmi Rahmi (Universitas Indonesia)
Project: Authenticity-in-Use: A KSKI-Led Study of AI-Aware Information Literacy Across Indonesian Documentary Institutions
4,450.00 USD
Congratulations to all winners!
In addition to the four winning projects, the following applicants and projects were ranked the top submissions in this year’s highly competitive grant round:
Yunci Tian, Peking University — When Governance Signals Are Appropriated: Understanding AI Disclosure Appropriation and Authenticity Judgment in Social Media
Kyounghoon Kim, Kyungpook National University — From Barriers to Design Principles: Participatory Development of an Information Literacy Instruction Model for Visually Impaired Learners
Katherine Klein, University of North Texas — Collaborating for Critical Information Literacy: Piloting a Community of Practice for School Librarians and School Counselors
Yunjie Tang, Peking University — Authenticity, Authority, and AI: Information Culture and the Making of Information Practice
Elphege (Ellie) Bernard-Tran, Dalhousie University — Making AI Legible: Authenticity, Trust, and AI Literacy Among Deaf Users
Fan Wang, Wuhan University — Seeing Is No Longer Believing: How Users Judge Authenticity and Calibrate Trust in the Age of AI-Generated Content
Nayana Kirasur, Rutgers University — Tracing Documents through Information Infrastructures of Welfare Governance in India
The iSchools Organization would like to thank the iSchools Research Grant Review Committee members June Abbas (University of Oklahoma), Denice Adkins (University of Missouri), Jessica Barfield (University of Kentucky), Jenny Bossaller (University of Missouri), Sarah Buchanan (University of Missouri), Cody Buntain (University of Maryland), Jennifer Campbell-Meier (Victoria University of Wellington), Xiaoyu Chen (Shanghai University), Jessie Chin(University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Youngok Choi (University of Kentucky), Andrew Cox (University of Sheffield), Milena Dobreva (University of Strathclyde), Fiorella Foscarini (University of Toronto), Jonathan Foster(University of Sheffield), Ina Fourie (University of Pretoria), Chunmei Gan (Sun Yat-sen University), Dion Hoe-Lian Goh (Nanyang Technological University), Koraljka Golub (Linnaeus University), Anne Goulding (Victoria University of Wellington), Kathleen Gray (The University of Melbourne), Zhuoren Jiang (Zhejiang University), Jeonghyun (Annie) Kim (University of North Texas), Emily Knox (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Masanori Koizumi(University of Tsukuba), Håkon Larsen (Oslo Metropolitan University), Spencer Lilley (Victoria University of Wellington), Konstantina Martzoukou (Robert Gordon University), Suvodeep Mazumdar (University of Sheffield), Chaoqun Ni (University of Wisconsin–Madison), David Nichols (University of Waikato), Gillian Oliver (Monash University), Vivien Petras (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Seamus Ross (University of Toronto), Laura Sbaffi(University of Sheffield), Tanusree Sharma (Pennsylvania State University), Sei-Ching Joanna Sin (Nanyang Technological University), Victoria Van Hyning (University of Maryland), Di Wang (Renmin University of China), Ping Wang (Central China Normal University), Kathy Wisser (Simmons University), and Pengyi Zhang (Peking University) for their detailed and extensive evaluations of the proposals.
The start of the iSchools Research Grants application period for 2027 will be announced in Spring 2027.
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